Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Undoubtedly, there will be a look-back at our experience over the past two years and how the pandemic was handled by the Government, State bodies and others. The Deputy will be aware that the Minister for Health recently announced the establishment of a public health reform expert advisory group that will initially focus on identifying the lessons to be learned from the public health components of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland, with a view towards strengthening health protection generally and future public health pandemic preparedness specifically. When the full story is told and the scorecard of how different countries fared in handling Covid-19 is published, Ireland will compare well. The data concerning the tragic mortalities that we experienced and so on show that Ireland has compared well, but that is not to in any way understate the loss, grief and trauma that all this has caused to so many families who have been affected.

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